That morning dawned bright and clear. It was going to be a beautiful fall day. Then everything changed. The day before, everything was full of optimism. The day after, fear became the new normal and we were at war.
We are just a little over a year away from the 20th anniversary of that fateful day and it got me thinking. I remember that day with vivid clarity right down to the clothes I was wearing. For me, that day will be forever etched in my memory. Yet for many of our incoming freshman and the ones that follow, it isn’t something that they remember. For many of them, they weren’t even born.
I began looking through the Smithsonian’s collection for 9/11 and to be honest, it was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. Their collection, September 11: Bearing Witness to History (https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/) includes artifacts from all three locations – New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. They also include photos and covers of newspapers and magazines like Time. In their statement about the collection, they state how difficult it was to collect these items especially since they “worried about appearing ghoulish in the face of bereavement.”[1]
In their education section, they have a blog that really struck home for me. “Teaching September 11: History or current event?[2] How do you teach something that was a current event for most teachers/professors but history for our students? How can you convey what it felt like on that day and how everything changed forever in those few moments? You have the memory, but they do not.
I thought about how I could use the Smithsonian’s exhibit on 9/11. What would my students think when they saw the artifacts? Would they see the tragedy or just stuff? The structural joint from the World Trade Center (https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/record.asp?ID=105) looks like a rusted piece of twisted metal. It has a description of it is and why it is important, but to them it is just a piece of metal. The door from Brooklyn Squad 1 (https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/record.asp?ID=49) could have been in an accident instead of being crushed when the towers fell. The clock from the Pentagon’s helipad fire station (https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/supporting.asp?ID=105&z=0) is just a normal clock until you realize that it was knocked off the wall when American Airlines flight 77 hit the Pentagon. The clock shows the exact time the plane struck. The photo of the investigators at the crash site in Shanksville (https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/supporting.asp?ID=157&z=0) could have been a campfire gone out of control instead of the crash site of heroes stood up to stop terrorists.
As I sit here and look over the artifacts and think about that tragic day, I keep hearing a song play in my head – “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” by Alan Jackson. Jackson spoke about writing the song to Today’s Christian magazine. Like me, he remembers that day clearly. “He had just come in from his usual morning walk and turned on the television set in his kitchen. “The first plane had already hit,” recalls the country singer. “I was standing there when the second one hit.”[3] He goes on to state that the song was written by “divine intervention.”[4]
For me, I know that it would be difficult to teach this specific event in American history, but it is a necessary thing to do. This is the perfect example of how history isn’t names, dates, and places. Using this exhibit demonstrates that this was about people, their lives, and how things can change in an instant.
For me, I was the second line of the second verse in Jackson’s song – “teaching a class full of innocent children.”[5] I was teaching middle school and was in English 7 when the first plane struck. I was heading to make copies when I was pushed into the fourth-grade room to see the second plane strike. I had to tell my homeroom class why we were leaving school early. My boys wanted to go “kick some ass” (I didn’t correct their language). My girls cried. We prayed together and sat together at lunch. I tried to comfort a teacher who couldn’t get a hold of her uncle or cousin who were working in the north tower. I prayed in church with the other teacher after the students went home and was terrified because our stalwart middle school coordinator was softly crying next to me. I knew it had to be bad when Madeline cried. When I left school, I met my family at our firehouse. We were there in case something happened, and we were needed. The next morning, I went back to school to teach and life moved on.
I am sure that the Smithsonian will have a new exhibit for the 20th anniversary. Remembrances will be held at all three sites with great solemnity. Stories will be told, like the ones in the 9/11 Digital Archives (https://911digitalarchive.org/). People will be asked “Where were you?” For me, I want to help my students learn about the people of that day and their lives. We lost over three thousand people and specifically 343 Fire, EMS, Police and Port Authority workers. It is my job to help convey who they were and why their sacrifice is important to remember. To tell the rest of their stories and my own.
Bibliography:
“About the Collection.” Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/about.asp.
The Essential Alan Jackson. Nashville, 2012.
https://amhistory.si.edu/september11
NMAH. “Teaching September 11: History or Current Event?” National Museum of American History, August 1, 2011. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2011/08/teaching-september-11-history-or-current-event.html.
Owen, Linda. “Story Behind the Song.” Story Behind the Song: Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning – Today’s Christian. Today’s Christian Magazine, 2003.
[1] “About the Collection.” Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://amhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/about.asp.
[2] NMAH. “Teaching September 11: History or Current Event?” National Museum of American History, August 1, 2011. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2011/08/teaching-september-11-history-or-current-event.html.
[3] Owen, Linda. “Story Behind the Song.” Story Behind the Song: Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning – Today’s Christian. Today’s Christian Magazine, 2003.
[4] Ibid.
[5] The Essential Alan Jackson. Nashville, 2012.
Seeking History 